U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,233, "Method and Apparatus for Data Entry", of N. W. Cardell, Jr. et al, issued Aug. 14, 1973. This patent discloses a data entry system for a stockbroker's terminal which displays alternative words in groups on a line ranging from left to right according to their descending frequency of use. Data entry is accomplished by erasing the words in each line that do not apply and tabbing over the word or words that do apply to complete a desired line. This patent relates to a human engineering aid for data entry utilizing an interactive terminal, however, no guess-ahead feature for possible long data strings is disclosed or suggested.
The article entitled, "Intelligent Terminal Thesaurus Function" by N. C. Hien and M. I. Lilie, IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 8, January 1979. This article discloses a data entry system for use within an interactive terminal wherein, when an operator enters an incorrect command to the system, instead of "ABENDING" the operation, the theasaurus feature is activated. At this point the system will extract from its theasaurus list the word which should have been entered into the system and (1) give the operator an opportunity to change the input just entered to the proper command as displayed or (2) at least advise the operator that the system has detected some error in command. There is no suggestion or teaching of a guess-ahead feature in this article.
The article entitled, "Chinese Typewriter System" by B. Dunham and H. Wang, IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 19, No. 1, June 1976. This article discloses inputting a relatively small number of strokes of a Chinese ideographic character whereupon the system goes to its memory, searches and displays as many characters stored therein as are generic to the current input strokes. At that time a plurality of characters are placed upon a display screen and the operator selects one of the characters if appropriate. The system disclosed in the article, although a data input system is a symbol processor and not a data processor.